This may have been Ashley Cole's first good day in months. According to one of yesterday's tabloids, the sainted Cheryl is on the brink of readmitting him to their marriage, which appeared to have suffered a terminal fracture in February – the same month in which he broke his ankle at Goodison Park. And Chelsea's 7-0 demolition of Stoke City can hardly have been a bad time to make his return to the Premier League, in front of the England manager.

He may have regained a wife but he looks to have lost at least half a stone since he last presented himself in front of the Stamford Bridge crowd. In the days before the Premier League players who missed long periods of the season through injury usually came back carrying a spare tyre and then began the job of working it off. Not any more.

An extended period of time in the physiotherapy department can mean a marked reduction of the body-mass index, particularly at Chelsea, where Salomon Kalou and Formerly Fat Frank Lampard now turn up for duty with as much excess weight as a stiletto.

Cole's physical fitness was much in evidence in yesterday's first half, when he made several eager box-to-box runs and was always looking for opportunities in the inside-left position. As early as the sixth minute his ambition was almost Chelsea's undoing when the combative Dean Whitehead robbed him on the edge of the Stoke area and initiated a counterattack that put the home defence into difficulties against Ricardo Fuller.

Cole was still out of position when Stoke won the chase for the half-clearance and continued the assault. A couple of minutes later his crude foul on Whitehead in front of the Stoke dug-out represented the most inelegant of responses.

He went on to distinguish himself, however, by popping up in the Stoke area as Lampard's 25-yard drive came back off Thomas Sorensen, only to see the goalkeeper recover to block his close-range effort from the rebound. And an 80-yard sprint was poorly rewarded when Nicolas Anelka marginally overhit his pass down the left after receiving a lovely first-time ball from the excellent Kalou.

Chelsea were a goal up when, temporarily blinded by the sun, Cole recovered well from missing a long cross, and two up when he made his worst defensive mistake of the afternoon, allowing Fuller to wriggle past him on the byline and produce a low cross that required an alert clearance from Alex.

He had another fleeting opportunity to join the lengthening list of blue-shirted goalscorers eight minutes after half-time. Again stealing into the visitors' area, he met a clever short pass from Didier Drogba this time, only for Robert Huth to block his shot.

With the score at 4-0 and the atmosphere becoming more end-of-term with each passing minute, he tried a trick that succeeded in presenting the ball to Tuncay. Neither Carlo Ancelotti nor Fabio Capello will have been much impressed by the sight of a defender attempting a Cruyff turn just inside his own half.

His physical resilience was demonstrated with a quarter of an hour to go when he rose to his feet unscathed after Huth, a former Chelsea man, had taken him out by the corner flag with a challenge that was not so much a tackle as a full-scale armoured assault.

But, without having a direct role in any of the seven goals, Cole had played a satisfactory part in an outstanding team performance and now has three games – in the Premier League against Liverpool and Wigan and in the FA Cup final against Portsmouth – in which to hone his edge before rejoining Capello's squad for their World Cup warm-up fixtures. On yesterday's evidence England will have a fully functional first-choice left-back in time for the opening fixture in South Africa.

Chelsea's other Cole is a different matter. Ancelotti left his No10 on the bench until the 71st minute yesterday and Joe Cole's cameo appearance in Kalou's place on the right side of the attacking trio left mixed impressions. Recently Capello remarked that the Cole of this season was not the one he remembered from before the knee injury that kept him out of action from January to September last year.

There were certainly signs of a continuing lack of sharpness but it was his cross from the byline, deflected off Danny Collins, that Drogba turned on for Malouda to perpetrate an astonishing point-blank miss at 4-0.

With a minute of normal time to go he was able to help the Frenchman redeem a rare error on an outstanding afternoon by providing the square ball for the strike that concluded the scoring.

By that time the match had long ceased to be a meaningful contest and no doubt Capello will be watching Chelsea's last three matches and conferring with Ancelotti before deciding whether or not to include the player in his plans for the summer. Remembering Cole's past contributions in difficult times, most England supporters will be hoping for a favourable verdict from these stern judges.